Anyone who has followed the ACC the last few years might find it hard to believe that at one time, Wake Forest was among the ACC’s standard-bearers. They might never imagine that the small school in Winston-Salem was pretty good most years and produced some good NBA players, including Tim Duncan and Chris Paul. Danny Manning has a tall order in front of him, but there’s a lot to like so far, and that included on Sunday.

Wake Forest has been very competitive this year despite its 5-11 mark in ACC play. In the opener, they gave Louisville all they could handle and could easily have won that game. They were right there with Duke in the next game and took Syracuse to overtime in the Carrier Dome. They broke through against NC State and Miami, then nearly pulled off a huge upset at Virginia. On Sunday, they took on a Pittsburgh team that needs to keep winning for its NCAA at-large hopes, and the Demon Deacons pulled out a 69-66 win.

Sometimes forgotten amidst all the “bubble” talk this time of year is a simple fact: if a team wins enough games, it doesn’t have to worry about being on the bubble.

One of the most intriguing teams of the bracketology season has been Purdue, with its year full of peaks and valleys. Rather than leaving the decision in the hands of others, though, the Boilermakers have been taking big steps towards going out and grabbing an NCAA bid, and they did so again Thursday night with a 67-63 win at Indiana to complete a season sweep of the rival Hoosiers.

Purdue came into Thursday night’s game with a huge size advantage and took every advantage of it. The Boilermakers hammered IU on the glass 38-21 and scored 40 points in the paint and in all 57 of their 67 points in the paint or from the foul line.… Continue Reading

If anyone needs more ammo for declaring that college basketball too frequently is not an easy sport on the eyes, they received all they needed last night.

The subject is coaches micromanaging the ends of halves of college basketball games. It is leaving us frustrated, begging for change, ready to organize a celebrity panel of athletes, sportscasters and mascots to write and sing a song about it, the way “Fans Against Traveling” once pleaded “Don’t Walk” to the NBA in a memorable “This is SportsCenter” commercial years ago.

Some college basketball thoughts from the first week of February, as “bubble” talk becomes increasingly a part of every day of the rest of the regular season:

Mentioned Butler’s Roosevelt Jones last week, and just how valuable he is for all he does for his team. Another guy you can put in that category: Seth Tuttle of Northern Iowa. Tuttle has been a low post load in the MVC for a couple years now, and he still is. The big guy is far more than that though, and can score, rebound, pass, and even step out and shoot the three. He touches ball in the high post on almost every possession; clearly, UNI’s offense runs through him. In some ways, he is reminiscent of Halil Kanacevic, who had the ball in his hands all the time for St. Joseph’s last year. Tuttle isn’t going to run the point like Kanacevic did, but he can do just about everything else. His outstanding senior year (15.7 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists per game) has him as a deserving frontrunner for Valley player of the year honors.

Back on September 30, 2014, no one would have thought it was possible. Well, no one outside of a few people about 25 miles south of Boston.

The New England Patriots had just been thrashed on Monday Night Football, out-classed by Kansas City. The Patriots didn’t even look like a good college football team that night. Every team has off nights, but this didn’t seem like just that. They were 2-2 at the time and nothing leaped out at you as championship-worthy about this team. There was talk about whether the Tom Brady era was over. There were questions of whether or not it was time for them to start getting ready for the next generation of Patriots football.

Being a college basketball coach is not the easiest job these days. Yes, many coaches make a lot of money, but the demands of the job can be a bit unforgiving at times. There is much more to it than simply running practice, drawing up a game plan and then coaching the game. While we have seen numerous instances of this over the years, and they always give us a reason to pause for perspective, Friday provided us with three more of them all at once.

A couple of them have been developing stories, thus they didn’t come out of left field. The third did, though, and it is one that really shouldn’t be part of the news cycle, but gets out there in the open and thus gets discussed.

It wasn’t enough to beat Michigan State. No, Texas Southern had one more trick up their sleeve, and we saw it on Sunday afternoon. The Tigers beat Michigan State in overtime just over a week ago, and this time a buzzer-beater by Jason Carter gave them a 58-56 win at Kansas State.

The Tigers had some help along the way. Kansas State was 2-8 from the free throw line in the final 69 seconds, allowing Texas Southern to rally from being down six a little earlier. The Wildcats were 8-20 from the foul line for the entire game.

We know what Penn State went through a couple of years ago with their football program. It’s been through a lot, and they are now back in a bowl game this year. While the basketball program never had to go through a criminal and then NCAA investigation, it has had its own demons. Life inside the program is not easy.

Penn State is a classic example of a “football school.” Football is sport 1, 1-A, 1-B and more there, especially for the fan base. The basketball team plays a distant second fiddle, if that. I won’t go much into detail – a respected colleague who attended the school did a great job of that right here.

Earlier this week, the ACC/Big Ten Challenge was the center of attention. For the past couple of nights it’s the SEC/Big 12 Challenge that has taken over. And just like one game in particular in the former got everyone’s attention, and was about as good as billed, there was one matchup in the latter that many were eagerly awaiting. It wasn’t quite as good as billed in the second half, but it was a competitive game, for the most part.

Texas had about as good a month of November as Kentucky, as previously detailed in this space. The Longhorns also have a lot of length, so they figured to be able to match up with Kentucky. Texas led several times in the first half and had a big edge on the glass, and the teams were tied at 26 at the break. It figured to be quite a second half.

Sunday was the day for a trip a little down the road from Saturday’s destination to check out some prep school action. We take a look at some notes from the day’s games in the Hoop Dreams Mag Prep Classic.

2014 Prep School Tour

Missed a recap of an open gym workout? We have them all right here for you.